Hines v. Copeland

Statute of Frauds—Contract to Convey Land—Specific Performance—Pleading.—A complaint, in an action for the specific performance of a contract to convey land, which does not show that the contract'is in writing, fails to state a cause of action and is demurrable.

Id.—Contract to -Convey Land—Sufficiency of Writing—Description of Property.—A writing relied upon to satisfy the statute of frauds in case of a contract to convey land must not only describe the property, but the description must be such as to facilitate, without the necessity of resorting to extrinsic or parol evidence, a ready identification of the property.

Id.—Receipt—Sufficiency as Memorandum of Contract.—The following receipt for money paid on account of the purchase price of land does not satisfy the statute of frauds and will not support an action for specific performance of the contract to convey: “Fresno, Cal., April 20, 1913. Received of S. B. Hines one hundred dollars, deposit on 40 acres of land at $2200.00. Mrs. M. E. Copeland.”

Id.—Specific Performance—Certainty of Description of Property in Contract to Convey.—Specific performance of an agreement to convey land will be decreed only where the land is so described in the contract that it may readily be identified from such description. The court must, in other words, be definitely made to know the precise property as to which the terms of the agreement are asked to be enforced. And such knowledge can be acquired only by those means or through that instrumentality prescribed by the law for the acquisition of such knowledge, that is, by and through such a writing as embraces all the essential features of the contract.

Id.—Part Performance of Oral Agreement—Part Payment.—Mere ■payments on the purchase price are not sufficient to take an oral contract for the sale of land out of the statute of frauds. It is only where the payment is accompanied by a change of possession, or the expenditure of money on the land, on the faith of the oral agreement, and where the failure to perform by the vendor will work a gross fraud upon the vendee, that a court of equity will decree specific performance by compelling the execution of the deed.